Wallace

William Wallace

Born: 23 Sept 1768 in Dysart, Scotland
Died: 28 April 1843 in Edinburgh, Scotland

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Wallace was self-taught in mathematics and became a teacher in Perth, then a professor at the Royal Military College with Ivory and then, in 1819, professor of mathematics at Edinburgh.

Wallace's work was on geometry and Simson's line (which is definitely not due to Simson!) appears first in a paper of Wallace in 1799. One of Wallace's theorems,

if 4 lines intersect each other to form 4 triangles (omit one line in turn) then the circumcircles of the triangles have a point in common ,

was generalised to 2n lines by Clifford.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. William Wallace, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 6 (1845), 31-36.
  3. J S McKay, William Wallace, Proc. Edinburgh Math. Soc. 9 (1891), 38-91.
  4. William Wallace, Proc. Edinburgh Math. Soc. 23 (1905), 80-85.
  5. M Panteki, William Wallace and the Introduction of Continental Calculus to Britain : A Letter to George Peacock, Historia Mathematica 12 (1986), 352-355.
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